


Lunches at Anakin’s

by Firejay112



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: (Author is having too much fun with tags), Also Luke shows up eventually, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Author can’t be bothered learning how to italicize so uses asterisks instead, Basically written with my knowledge of kids’ behaviours from my swimming lessons, Because Anakin/Vader is in this story and his mental health is a MESS, Children can be horrible, Darth Vader Lives, Darth Vader Redemption, Fix-It of Sorts, Gen, Not as self-insert (we don’t do that here), Post-Star Wars: Return of the Jedi, Primary school sucks, TW: PTSD (probably) and Depression (probably), Tatooine Slave Culture (Star Wars), That's Not How The Force Works (Star Wars), That’s definitely NOT how the Force works, Updates Sundays (maybe?), You Have Been Warned, especially when you’re a force-sensitive Twi’lek, no beta we die like Jedi, sorry - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-24
Updated: 2021-03-14
Packaged: 2021-03-16 06:21:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 9,618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28951863
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Firejay112/pseuds/Firejay112
Summary: Half a year post the events of Return of the Jedi, a very young Force-sensitive slave girl gets lost in the streets of Mos Espa. But there is a light inside her whispering of a path to someone who can help...Disclaimer: {inserts all of the obvious stuff here}
Comments: 35
Kudos: 33





	1. Freedom

Ryee had always known she was different from the other children in Mos Espa. Other children didn’t have dreams, or know what would happen moments before they would. Other children couldn’t *feel* things, or *know* things about other people they were trying to hide.

Ryee knew when her master was angry, or her mother was sad. It happened a lot. She learned to hide when she felt her master arrive home angry. She knew that when he was angry he’d scream and hit her and tell her she was useless, another mouth to feed. She knew that made her ma sad. When she could she’d snuggle against her ma and make her better. Ryee liked making people and animals better. It made her happy. She would collect sick animals and nurse them to health.

One day, that made Master very unhappy. He had been scary. Ryee had run. Now she was lost, scared, and sad. She wanted to go back home.  
But this was Tatooine. No-one paid attention to the small girl crying on the street.

People were scary. Some tried snatching her. She’d run away. She was tired, and thirsty, and still lost.  
And then she felt it. A glow, like a pulsing ember, bright and warm but still dark and sad, and a bit scary, but safe. She had never felt a glow before.  
She ran towards the glow. It led her to a run-down hangar on the edge on Mos Espa near a junkyard, where a strange droid-like being clad in loose brown robes sat in the doorway with a hydrospanner fixing something. He was the glow she could feel, and he was in pain and very, very sad. Shyly she moved forward. The creature raised his head and looked at her. He looked scary with his big black goggles and headwrap, but Ryee wasn’t scared. The light told her not to be.

“This is no place for a youngling,” the man said in a mechanical voice. “What is it you want, young one?”  
“Why do you glow?” Ryee asked, shyly moving in front of him, playing with the tip of her lekku. 

The man set down what he was working on. His breathing made a strange sound, too loud in the twilight, and his head tilted. “What is it you mean?”  
“You glow,” Ryee said. “I feel it here.”

She put her hand to chest and pointed at the centre of the man’s chest. She felt the being sadden, the glow darken somewhat.

“Why are you sad?” Ryee asked, sitting at the man’s feet.   
“Because I am a bad person, child.“  
“You are not a bad person,” Ryee said, pushing against her chest again. “I feel it here.”   
The man made an odd sound, like a sigh. “You sensed wrong, child. You should not be here, it is not safe. Where are your parents?”  
“I am lost,” Ryee said. “The glow said you could help me. Can you help me? I’m scared.”

She looked up at the stranger, trusting him completely. The man sighed again and knelt in front of her. 

“Very well. What is your name, young one?”  
“Ryee.”  
“It is a pleasure to meet you, Ryee. I am Anakin.”  
He stood, and was towering over the young Twi’lek, but she wasn’t scared. She felt safe.  
“Come, young one. Mos Espa is an unfriendly place at night. We will find your parents in the morning.”

Anakin held out a black-gloved hand and she took it. The inside of the house was tidy, the only mess being the electronic parts strewn a bit everywhere. Anakin sat her down on a chair and left, returning later with a pitcher of water and some food he set down in front of her.

“You may have some more if you are still hungry afterwards.”  
Ryee’s eyes widened at the food. “That’s all for... me?”

Anakin nodded. She held out her hand and took some water, feeling the glow thrum in unwilling concern. When she was done eating, she yawned and fell asleep. She was barely aware of being carefully picked up and moved.

She woke the next morning and walked to the table where Anakin had set out food. The man with headwrap and goggles watched her eat, tinkering with what looked like a broken holotransmitter. 

“Now, child,” he said as she slurped happily on a glass of blue milk. “Where do you live?”  
“In a house,” Ryee said, getting a funny feeling in her head like someone was looking at her. “There‘s a lot of beautiful colours. Mommy cuts the colours and makes clothes.”  
“What is outside?”  
“A big empty place. We play Smugglers and Troopers! One day, Ketk almost fell in the well pretending to be a starship.”  
“Are both your parent’s Twi’leks?”  
Ryee thought about it, her short lekku bouncing at her shoulders. “Mommy is like me!”  
“Is your mother green, like you?”  
Ryee nodded enthusiastically. “Mommy is beautiful! She has spots on her lekku. I got stripes,” she added dejectedly. She got the funny feeling in her head again.   
“I believe I know enough,” Anakin said. “Once you are done eating, I will return you to your family?”  
“I’m done!” Ryee said, jumping off her chair. 

When they walked through the city, Ryee noticed many stares. People seemed to melt away, and she felt suspicion and fear. She looked around, and didn’t know why. Anakin didn’t seem to notice, and so she clung tighter to his gloved hand and kept walking, chatting with the masked human about everything, her friends, her mother... she could tell Anakin liked listening to her.

“Why did you run away?”  
Ryee’s lekku drooped. “Master is scary,” she said.

The robed figure stopped walking and released her hand. She could feel he was very unhappy suddenly, and she shrank back. Had she done something wrong?

“You have a master?” 

The droid-like voice was low, and the black-gloved hands were clenched into fists. Ryee shrank further and nodded, suddenly scared as the warm glow she felt from Anakin cooled, stifled in part by... dark. It pulsed like a heartbeat.

“Come,” the mechanical voice said. 

He carried Ryee the rest of the way home. Master wasn’t there, only mommy. Anakin set her down and let her run inside.

“Ryee!” Mommy held her, and was crying. She had fallen down a lot, and had a lot of bruises on her neck and lekku. She covered Ryee with kisses. “Where were you?”  
“Mommy!” Ryee said happily, snuggling in her arms.   
“Vetta! Get back to work, you useless—” Master yelled, coming in from the kitchen. Mommy was scared and her arms tightened around Ryee. “Oh, so I see the little useless brat’s back, is she?”  
“No, she is not,” came Anakin’s mechanical voice from the doorway. The tall man ducked inside and straightened, the glow flickering in a way that made Ryee scared. “The child and her mother are coming with me, along with rest of your *slaves*.”  
Master was scared and backed away. “Who the blazes do you think you are, to come in and make demands?”  
“Someone you do *not* want to provoque further,” Anakin replied, the glow flickering dangerously, almost as if it would go out. He was very, very angry. “Release your slaves at this instant, or *suffer* the *consequences*.”  
“I’ve had enough!” Master was angry. He pulled out a blaster. “I bought them, they are mine!”

Anakin’s fury seemed to try to reach out and crush Ryee as the warm glow blinked out, replaced by darkness and freezing cold that made her scream and cling to Mommy tighter. The robed figure raised a hand and the darkness made the blaster explode in Master’s hand, before grabbing Daddy and slamming him into the wall.

“Take Ryee and wait outside,” the mechanical voice said and the black figure advanced on Daddy, who started making strange sounds, scared and hurting. Mommy put Ryee’s face against her chest and Ryee trembled and sobbed, terrified.  
“There are five more of us,” Mommy said quietly. “He keeps us in the back room.”

She ran out the door. 

Ryee screamed and cried as she felt the darkness grow and hurt and scare her from inside the house. She was scared for Master. Master was going to die. The darkness coiled to strike and she sobbed harder. Mommy couldn’t make her better. 

“Don’t!” Ryee screamed into the dark. “Don’t!”

It wavered and she felt a curious touch like with icy fingers. She flinched, terrified. The darkness folded back into shame and fear and sorrow which glowed with warm light once more. A few moments later, Anakin emerged from the house followed by Ryee’s five aunts and uncles, holding something in his hand.

“All of you, follow me,” he said. “I can deactivate your transmitters.”  
“We don’t have a choice, do we?” Uncle Vex said.  
Anakin paused. “I am afraid that as long as the transmitters remain, you will never have a choice. Please believe me when I say I mean you no harm. I was a slave as well, once.”

For the rest of the day, Ryee watched as Anakin built a device to detect the slave disks, Mommy by her side. Mommy was worried about her, and worried about a lot of things. 

“Ryee,” she said, bringing her aside and whispering. “You must be more careful. You do not know this... being.”  
“He’s my friend, mommy,” she said. “I feel it here.” She pressed her hand to her chest. “He glows, mommy.”  
Her mother frowned. “You do not know who he is or what, *ma sareen*.”  
Ryee scrunched her forehead in thought. “He is Anakin,” she said. “He’s a human. He’s very nice.”  
“How do you know he’s human?” her mother asked.

Ryee looked at her questioningly. Why didn’t her mommy know it?

“Will you be happier if we go, Mommy?” Ryee asked.  
Her mommy sighed and started rocking Ryee. “We can’t leave yet, sweet. This... your friend must help us first. If that’s what he wants.”  
“It is!” Ryee said earnestly.   
Her mommy smiled and hugged her. “If that’s the case, we’re lucky you found him.”  
“Mommy,” Ryee said, eyes half closing.  
“Yes?”  
“I think...” she yawned. “Maybe we’re supposed to help *him*, too.”


	2. Freeing the slaves

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We get inside Human-Disaster Skywalker’s head for a bit. Turns out he thinks the Force may be messing with him.

When morning came, Vader pulled himself out of his meditation, shaking his head as he returned to building the machine that—he hoped—would deactivate the ex-slaves’ disks for good without setting them off. Ever since he had met the small Force-sensitive Twi’lek the previous day, he had been surprised at how innocent she had been despite how developed her Force powers were. He shuddered, remembering how close he had been to Force-choking the life out of the tailor, and how Ryee’s terror had been the thing to give him enough time to claw his way back to a shred of light side. It made him angry at himself.   
Ever since his turn against Sidious aboard the Death Star, his... death? and subsequent.... revival? reawakening? on Tatooine, he had been struggling with the ever-latent darkness in him. Close calls like these were one of the reasons he had sworn *not* to leave his workshop to go to town. He didn’t want to be who he had been before. 

And yet, within him would always lurk the darkness, as much a part of him as his own eyes. It had always been there. All that had truly changed is that now the wrongness in the man who had once been Anakin could be given a name, as if they were two separate beings sharing the same body. It would have been simpler if this was the case—he could blame everything on Vader—but the truth was that there had never been two men. There was only one him. Anakin Skywalker and Darth Vader. A failure of a Jedi, a failure of a Sith, and worse—a failure of a friend, of a husband, and of a father.

Perhaps failure was the curse of being the so-called Chosen One.

The first ex-slave to awake was the Togruta male called Shaat Tano, and Vader wondered if he was related to Ahsoka. He was one of the ones who watched the ex-Sith’s movements with a suspicion which was familiar to him. 

Vader ignored him, returning to his scanner. It was almost done. He fused two wires together and the slave chip scanner lit up. 

“You say this is going to work?” the Togruta asked.

Vader inputted the radio wave frequency of this groups’ remote and waited. The screen flashed green. He ran final simulations with his suit’s systems, reading the scroll of information in his HUD and was satisfied. 

“It will work,” he declared just as Ryee and her mother walked in, the small twi’lek youngling smiling at him and waving. Vader eyed her. The young child appeared to have taken an inexplicable liking to him ever since she had stumbled upon his junkyard. He had no idea why the Force would have sent her to him of all people. He still had no idea what had possessed him to give the child his old name, although he suspected that had also to do with the Force. Perhaps it was the energy field’s twisted sense of humour. Not for the first time, it felt like it was toying with him.

“I would like to try first,” Numa said, placing a hand on her daughter’s head.   
“No, Numa,” the human, Vex, said. “You have a daughter. I’ll go first. I have nothing to lose.”  
They prepared an area on the ground.  
“Your transmitter,” Vader asked Vex. “Do you know where it is?”  
“In the lower trunk, I think.”

Vader passed the scanner over the man’s body and found the disk circling one of his lower vertebrae, where it would be perfect for immobilizing legs and nothing else.

He reached out to the Force and used it to guide the machine to the optimal spot so as to not damage the spinal cord. He set it off, and in the Force sensed the slight discharge that fried the internal circuits of the terrible device while leaving the outside intact—a little trick he had learned from Sidious’ Force-Lightning. He felt grim satisfaction at the idea of subverting his old Master, even in such a small way.

Ryee’s eyes were wide as she hugged her mother’s legs. 

“It is done,” he said.


	3. Aftermath, a Time-skip, and Primary School being the Absolute Worst (Lunch 1)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Poor Ryee learns the hard way that primary school sucks, especially if you don’t fit in.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW for primary school bullying, I guess? I’m not sure if that’s something that normally triggers people, but I figured I’d warn just in case.

Mommy and her uncles and aunties were very happy, and not scared anymore, and it made Ryee happy. She wasn’t happy for long. Mommy said they were leaving. Ryee didn’t want to leave, she felt safe and she didn’t want to make her friend Anakin sad. 

Mommy and Auntie Chi and Uncle Shaat told her they wanted to start a shop and send her to school. She didn’t know what school was. Mommy said it was a place to make new friends and learn new things. 

It was fun until the other children gradually decided that they didn’t like Ryee because she was strange. At first it was small things, like the others not wanting to play with her anymore. By the time she was in third grade, it became downright mean. The grade three-four teacher had to leave for a month and a replacement no-one like liked took over. The other kids called like the new teacher, Ms. Grinter, ‘the grinch’ because she was older and stricter than their normal teacher. Ryee felt bad for Ms. Grinter and decided to be nice to her instead. Turns out that being nice was a terrible idea and the fourth graders in her class didn’t like it at all and began a running joke that Ryee was dirty, weird, and stank. Ryee’s third-grader classmates, of course, followed along with this—the fourth graders were older, and so what they did was automatically cool. Everyone found making Ryee feel terrible some sort of fun. Ryee started hiding behind the school building at lunchtime in the school yard just to avoid the other younglings. Most of the time, no-one found her. One day, she wasn’t so lucky.

“Hey, I found the teacher’s pet!” 

Ryee started, looking up. Kit, the leader of the older kids, had found her. The human boy was grinning down at her as his followers slowly fanned out in a semi-circle, trapping her against the wall. 

“What you doing out here, wormhead?” Kit asked.  
“Go away,” Ryee said, hugging her lunch kit to her chest and trying to sink into the wall.  
“Maybe it’s so she doesn’t stink out the caf,” one of his friends, Ilan, said with a laugh as he made a face, pinching his nose.  
The other children laughed, some of them sniffing the air and pretending to choke on a bad smell. Ryee’s eyes filled with tears, and that more than anything mande her want to die right there. “Go... a...away,” she sniffled.  
“Oh, you hear the wormhead,” Kit said, snorting. “She wants us to g-g-go a-a-away! What’s wrong, wormhead? Can’t take a joke?”

If it was a joke, Ryee didn’t see how it was funny. The young Twi’lek was trying hard—unsuccessfully—not to cry. 

“Can’t take a bath either, apparently,” Ilan said. “Ew!”  
“Aw, poor little crybaby doesn’t like a joke,” another kid said.

She stared at her feet. She wanted it to stop.

“Hey freak,” Kit said, hitting her lunch kit from her arms and onto the dusty ground. “What am I thinking right now, freak? Go on, read my mind.”

Ryee tried to get past him into the opening in the semi-circle his stepping forward had caused. He grabbed her lekku, and colours erupted behind her eyes.

“Well? Read my mind, freak!”  
“Leave me alone!” she screamed, and the glow in her chest exploded out of her. She stood, blinking in the sunlight, staring at the other children who were suddenly on their bums on the ground, looking stunned.

What had happened?

“Witch!” Kit yelled.

Terrified, Ryee ran.

When she was far enough away her panic had disappeared, Ryee stopped running and looked around. Her feet brought her to a very familiar scrapyard she hadn’t seen since she was little. Nearby, she could feel another glow.

“Anakin?” she called, remembering the name of the man that had freed her and her mother and her aunties and uncles two years ago.

She got a funny, startled feeling in her mind and Anakin appeared from behind a speeder, apparently having been busy fixing it. Ryee had forgotten how tall he was—he wore the same brown and tan robes with goggles as the last time she had seen him. She was suddenly scared he didn’t recognize her, and looked down at her feet. 

“Ah. I do not suppose you are lost again?” 

He did recognize her! Ryee looked up, instantly feeling a bit better. Anakin’s head tilted to the side quizzically. He seemed concerned.

For some reason, the realization made her eyes fill with tears. 

“N-no.”  
“Then why are you here?”  
“I was just running. I didn’t mean to come here. It just... happened.”  
Anakin seemed to mull this over. “And you were running why?”  
“The others at school,” Ryee said. “They’re mean. I hate it.”

Silence fell, broken only by the regular rasp-wheeze of Anakin’s breathing and the sounds from the city behind Ryee.

“Come inside,” he said finally. “You can tell me what happened while you eat lunch.”

***  
“...it just happened! Now they call me a witch!” Ryee said. “But it wasn’t me, I swear! It was the wind, or...”

“The *wind*?” Anakin’s voice was amused.  
Ryee nodded emphatically.  
“We both know it was not the wind, child.”  
Ryee’s lekku drooped. “But it wasn’t me. I didn’t touch them!”  
“No, you did not. You used the Force.”  
“What force?“  
“*The* Force. It is the energy that binds together every living and nonliving thing in the Galaxy. Most are unaware of this connection; however, there are some special beings who can sense the Force and even wield it. You, child, are one of these beings.”  
“No, I’m not,” Ryee said.

She could tell that her response annoyed Anakin. 

“When you came here two years ago, you said you felt a ‘glow’. Furthermore, you just told me that the other children do not like you for knowing how they feel, and that even some adults find it uncanny. Today, you said that ‘the glow exploded out of you’ and pushed the other children away. That is the Force, child.”  
“But I don’t want to be different!” Ryee sounded plaintive and pathetic even to herself. She hugged herself. “It’s not fair...”  
She got the sense the man behind the mask agreed with her. “Life is not fair, youngling.”

Ryee nodded and hugged herself tighter. 

“I am sorry. You must return to school, now.”  
“I don’t want to go,” Ryee said miserably.

She got the impression that answer annoyed Anakin again. “It is not a choice. You cannot stay here, and your education is important.”  
Ryee lowered her head, trying and failing to put a brave face on. Fear coiled in her gut. The sting of rejection came back again and she felt very, very alone. It hurt.  
“Ryee, you must listen to me. Speak to your mother or another adult you trust when you get back home. And no matter what you do, do not come back.”  
“But?” Ryee said. “You... you know things. I know it. I know you can help me.”  
“I cannot. I do not care what the Force tells you. I am not a good man, and I am dangerous to be around. It will do you no good to associate yourself with me.”

Anakin stood and went to stand beside the door. The message was clear: she should leave.  
She stood and tried not to feel miserable. It was failing horribly. Remembering her manners, she still paused and looked up into the goggles.

“Thank you anyway,” she said, before starting to walk away.  
“Ryee,” Anakin called suddenly. She turned. “I would help if I could. I *am* sorry.”  
“I know,” Ryee said. 

She did understand; he thought he couldn’t help her, and he was afraid to try for some reason. What hurt her was that she knew he could, just as she had known he would help when she was smaller. 

He nodded towards where she had come from. “You should return to school now, or you‘ll be late.”

She nodded and walked off, feeling sad and lekku drooping. Instead of going to class she wandered around the city until the suns told her she could go back home. She wanted to talk to Ma, she really did, but she knew that Ma had a bad day. So she made herself look cheerful for her. 

Ryee cried herself to sleep that night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, here you have it. A third chapter.
> 
> This chapter is probably a bit more... personal for me, in a way, and the closer we’ll get to Ryee being a self-insert. What I mean by this is that the episodes with Ryee being bullied are largely based on my own experiences throughout primary and high-school. While I never got physically pushed around like Ryee (the perks of being a tall child, ha!), Ryee is lucky enough to not have a teacher that hates her and actively encourages said bullying (long story—let’s just say it got bad enough that said teacher introduced a song with my name in it about a kid that drowned during a game... and the other kids picked it up and tailored it to me... and then the teacher played it on the PIANO and had the other kids sing it to me. Yep. Fun times.) But was I ever shunned by my peers? Yep, throughout primary and secondary school. Was there a running joke with older kids calling me a “gross teacher’s pet?” Absolutely. Did I start having mental breakdowns before going to school? Also yes. I’ve been used as a placeholder more times than I can count, and excluded on purpose even more times than that. In secondary school (all girls school. Yay.) I got told I couldn’t sit places, given the side-eye, told by ‘friends’ that they wanted me to get lost, and ended up giving up on making friends altogether. I began eating alone at lunch time, hiding in the stairwell behind the library during winter because we were only allowed to eat in the cafeteria. I was lucky enough to have teachers who cared for my wellbeing and allowed me to come eat with them from time to time, and to have some amazing family members who would take me out for lunch from time to time. 
> 
> Why am I writing all of this at the end of fanfiction of all things? I’m not too sure, to be honest. Part of it is because bullying and feeling alone sucks and hurts. God, it hurts, and just the memory of that pain is enough to bring tears to my eyes on the best of days. So if you’re being bullied, or feel lonely or feel you can’t fit in anywhere in the real world, you’re not alone. There are a ton of us who had similar experiences. And... if you’re someone like me who had a crappy self-esteem and felt like you were/are stuck in a cell of your own making, shackled by fear of rejection and more pain, and crying out for help that never comes because you’re invisible... it can get better. It did for me. It wasn’t easy—to be honest, it’s still an ongoing process—but it’s doable. All it took for me was a clean slate in post-secondary studies and a student job that I loved that forced me out of my comfort zone (swimming lessons ❤️). 
> 
> And it doesn’t have to be all bad. If there is one thing that I learned from being bullied and lonely, is that I’ll be damned if I ever let it happen to others people.
> 
> Anyway, see you next week! Thanks for reading, and feel free to drop a comment.


	4. The Next Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A teacher tries to help. Children are still children. Vaderkin’s conscience is uneasy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoops. A couple hours late for Sunday. Sorry ‘bout that.

Ms. Pryce, their homeroom teacher, was back the next day, so maybe it wasn’t going to be so bad after all. Ms. Pryce was a nice lady, with big green eyes and frizzy brown hair that made Ryee wish she had hair and not lekku. She asked Ryee to stay behind at lunch time so they could talk.  
“Ryee, Ms. Grinter said you missed class yesterday. Is everything alright?”  
Ryee looked up, eyes wide. The human’s smile was warm. “You can tell me what has happened. I promise I won’t tell.”  
“Kit and his friends were just having fun and hurt my lekku,” Ryee said, looking down at her feet. She didn’t want to worry Ms. Pryce, and it would just be worse if the fourth-graders learned that she had said things to a teacher. Besides, no-one ever thought Kit did anything wrong. “That’s all.”  
“If you say so,” Ms. Pryce said, unconvinced. “Well, if ever you are getting any trouble from the other children you come and tell me, alright?”  
Ryee nodded and went to hide behind the library for lunch. She didn’t notice the tall robed figure observing the perimeter of the school.

Meanwhile, Vader frowned at himself, seeing the young Twi’lek furtively dart out of the school back door and creep to a nook between two school buildings, tucking herself behind a vaporator. The girl’s visit the previous day had left his conscience—or whatever passed for a conscience, he supposed—feeling oddly... unsettled. Somehow, it had brought back memories of when Skywalker—when he—had been a young Padawan learner at the Jedi Temple, although the two situations were nothing alike. That may have been so, but it still bothered him more than it had any right to.

Still. There was something he could do to lay his conscience to rest.

***

***

Vetta heard the door open and looked up from her sowing to see Anakin, the man who had freed the slaves two years ago come in. 

“Anakin!” Vetta greeted the other former slave. Although she knew she likely didn’t need to—the man was known among their people for organizing and running various slave escape runs with Shaat, while occasionally using his mechanic’s shop as a front, she still harboured enough suspicion of everyone to also check the blaster at her hip. “It has been a while. How can I help you?”

“I wanted to speak to you about your daughter, Ryee,” the mechanic said, and Vetta immediately tensed.   
“What about her?”  
“She found her way to my workshop yesterday at lunch time.“  
“What?” Vetta shot straight, lekku stiffening. “Ryee wasn’t at school for lunchtime?”  
“No. And she was distraught when I saw her. She has apparently been having significant troubles with other younglings at school.”

That would explain why Ryee had looked off as of late. Vetta felt the fear take her heart. Had she really been too busy to—

“Ryee said you were stressed as of late, and this was why she did not tell you. I counselled her to speak to you herself.” He seemed to peer at Vetta. “Which she has yet to do, manifestly.”  
“No, she hasn’t,” Vetta confirmed, anxiously bringing her lekku over her shoulders. “Thank you, Anakin, for bringing this to my attention, and for handling the situation—”  
“There is more, Vetta,” Anakin said, interrupting her. “She said that when she attempted to defend herself, that she unwittingly used the Force.“  
“The... Force?” Vetta said.  
Anakin nodded. “The Force. A mystical energy field that surrounds us and that connects all of us. You know of the Jedi; this was the source of their power, and the source of mine.”  
“And Ryee can access it, as well?” Vetta said. “Is that what you are saying?”  
“Yes. You may have noticed how she appears to be unusually attuned to the emotions around her, or that she has hunches, or feelings about people or situations that are usually correct. These are hallmarks of Force-sensitivity.”

Vetta thought back to Ryee’s childhood. She had always been a very quiet child, and an incredibly sensitive one as well. And over time, Vetta had learned to pay attention to how Ryee reacted to situations, hadn’t she? Just the other day, Vetta hadn’t gone to the market because Ryee had told her she had a bad feeling and begged her not to go, and turns out there had been a shootout between gangs that had killed a bunch of citizens in the crossfire. 

“This... Force is also what led her to you, isn’t it?” Vetta asked.   
Anakin nodded. “For some reason, it seems to be telling her that I can help.”

And there it was. Vetta’s eyes narrowed a fraction. 

“You want my permission to train her?“  
“No,” Anakin said sharply, the sudden loudness of his voice making her jump. “I want you to persuade her that I cannot help, despite what the Force tells her. I am dangerous. She must not come to me.”


	5. Explosion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things take a bad turn. Anakin does damage control. Ryee’s mom is a good mom.

The class the following day had an activity about different sentient species and learning to respect and admire differences between beings. But the only thing that Ryee knew for sure after school was that Kit now knew grabbing a Twi’lek’s lekku hurt a lot.

***  
Then one day, she snapped. 

They were in math class, learning how to do subtraction. Ryee liked math and how all the numbers were simple once you could remember what the numbers meant. She finished first despite Kit tugging at her lekku and whispering “hey, freak!” 

When she stood to wait at M. Quos’—Ms Pryce had called in with sand fever that day—desk for his return from the fresher, however, a searing pain shot up her right lekku and nearly blinded her. She fell to her knees in pain, before realizing the data pad was smashed—

“That will be fifty credits for your poor, no-good mother to pay, Freak!” Kit whispered.

It took awhile for the words to sink in through the pain.

Before she knew what was coming over her, she jumped to her feet, fists clenched, her whole body quivering in rage.

“How dare you!” she yelled. “My Ma’s the best in the Galaxy, she works harder than your Ma—“

“Everyone knows your ma was a slave, she probably got turned out because she’s so ugly—“

“I hate you!” Ryee shrieked, tears in her eyes. “You’re horrible!”

She felt power explode from her and Kit fell off his chair. She raised a hand and *pushed* him again, knocking him into a table. 

“What’s going on?” M. Quo said, before yelling.   
A storm was starting in the class. She could hear children yell. She only wanted to hurt Kit. All the times he had hurt her, stolen her lunch, pulled her lekku, made her scared—and now he was scared, and he was the one who was small, and powerless.

“I hate you!” she yelled again. Kit flew up in the air and down onto the floor. “I hate you, I hate you, I *HATE* YOU!”

“*RYEE!*” someone thundered. Something like solid air gripped her and shoved her back. She stumbled and fell on her backside, dazed. A tall figure clad in brown stalked towards her, utterly terrifying. Anakin. “WHAT DO YOU *THINK* YOU ARE DOING?!”

Ryee stared up, wide-eyed. Anakin’s fury seemed to fill the air around her, whipping around with cold gusts. He placed his closed fists on his hips and she could *feel* him glare down at her.

“W-who are you?” Mr. Quo squeaked.

“That is none of your concern,” the mechanical voice said shortly, and Ryee felt something in the room change, the usual buzz around her becoming dull. Her eyes widened as she could almost feel glow she sensed within Anakin expand, filling the room. “Ryee was ill and was sent home. Class will proceed as normal. No-one will have any recollection of these events.”

The teacher and the class repeated the words, their gazes unfocused. They looked almost... hypnotized.

Ryee started out of her own vagueness when Anakin grabbed her arm, yanked her to her feet and all but dragged her out of the school. 

“Wait,” she protested. “Anakin—“

“Silence,” he snapped.

Ryee started again, but shut up. She was in trouble, she could feel it. Fear crawled up her throat the longer Anakin dragged her behind him without speaking. She tried struggling, but his grip felt like durasteel. He brought her back to his workshop. The door opened at their approach, then shut behind them. Anakin led her to the table and chair she had eaten lunch at a few months ago and released her. 

“Sit,” he ordered, pointing at the chair, which pulled out without anything touching it. Ryee stared at it for a few seconds, then felt a spike of irritation and quickly sat. 

“Don’t move.” Anakin stalked off to a side-room.  
Ryee was too scared to do anything other than obey. She waited. Then waited. Anakin was talking to someone in the next room.

The wait was agonizing. More than once, Ryee felt herself go weepy. What had happened? It was her fault, she knew it was. She didn’t even know what she had done. She wanted her Ma.

Finally, Anakin walked back in. The storm around him had calmed. He set the tray he was carrying on the table and sat on the other chair, which creaked under his weight. 

“I have commed your mother. She is on her way as we speak.”

“What?” Ryee said, her stupid eyes filling with tears. She had wanted Ma here a few moments ago, and now she felt terrible for having her wish come true.

“She is your mother,” Anakin said, as if reading her mind. “Of course she is coming. Drink.”

He pushed a mug towards her. She smelled tzai. While it wasn’t exactly the blend of spices Ma used, the familiar smells immediately brought her comfort. Ryee reached out a hand and grabbed the warm mug, bringing it to her lips. 

“Now. Why did you attack that boy with the Force?”

“I... I didn’t mean to,” Ryee said in a small voice.   
Anakin pushed a flatcake towards her. She nibbled at it. 

“I did not ask whether you meant to. I asked why.”

Ryee took another sip of tzai, trying to swallow down the lump in her throat. “I hate him. He’s mean.”

“He is the one who bullies you, then.”

“Yes! He’s always mean to me. He says mean things! And he broke my datapad and insulted my Ma and I hate it! I hate him!”

“And so you wanted to hurt him?”

“I didn’t mean to hurt him!”

“You are lying,” Anakin said softly, and his tone made a shiver go down Ryee’s spine. “You wanted to hurt him.”

“N-n-no—“

“You did not mean to use the Force, but you wanted to get back at him.”

“N-no!”

“Do not deny it,” Anakin snapped. “You would have pushed or hit him had you not done so with the Force first. Look at me and tell me honestly that I am wrong.”

“No!”

“I said. To. Look. At. Me. Do not make me repeat myself.”

Ryee’s eyes met the black lenses. They were actually reddish.

“Now. Stop lying. Am. I. Wrong?”

“No,” Ryee’s eyes filled with tears.

“‘No’ what?”

“I wanted Kit to be s-s-scared. So he can s-s-stop h-h-hurting m-me.”

“So you hurt another youngling because he is an idiot,” Anakin said, and his anger had once again mellowed out in the Force. “Is that how your mother raised you to be?”

“N-n-no,” Ryee sobbed. Shame filled her, so deep she wanted to curl up and disappear. It warred with defensiveness. “But he hurt me! Isn’t it fair that he... he pay?“

Anakin’s black-gloved hands clenched on the table top. “‘Fair’ is not always ‘right’, young one.”

“Ryee!” Ma’s voice said, as she burst into the workshop. 

“Ma!” Ryee said, bursting into tears and running over to her mother. 

Her mother wrapped her in her arms. “Oh, sareen, are you alright? Tell me what happened.”

Ryee sobbed in Ma’s tunic. Ma held her, and Ryee could hear the echo of Ma’s voice in her chest and the rumbling answer of Anakin’s voice. Ryee babbled about everything, not even able to understand what she was trying to say. Ma stroked her head between her lekku and murmured confort.

“It’s okay,” Ma said. “It’s okay. Breathe, sareen. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry I didn’t do anything sooner.”

Finally, Ryee calmed down.

“Anakin said you hurt one of your bullies at school today?” Ma asked. “Can you please tell me why?”

“Kit broke my datapad. He pulled my lekku and called you a no-good slave,” Ryee said. “It made me angry. I... just want him to leave me alone.”

“I understand, Ryee,” Ma said softly.

Ryee blinked up at her. “You... do?”

“Mm hmm.” Ma nodded, and passed her hand over Ryee’s lekku. “I do understand. Feeling angry in situations like these is normal. Especially if you’ve been trying to hide being hurt and putting on a brave face—“

Ma’s voice cracked, and Ryee felt her be sad.   
“Ma, don’t be sad,” Ryee said. “Please don’t be sad!”

Her ma’s eyes were filled with tears. “I’m sorry, sareen. I love you so much. It just... hurts me to see how unhappy you are, because I’m your mother and I want you to be happy. It’s the thing I want the most in the whole wide Galaxy. And it makes me angry too, just like you were when you were at school earlier today. I cannot tell you how much a part of me would love to find every single child who hurt you and yell at them.”

“Really?” Ryee asked.

“Really,” Ma said. “But do you know why I won’t do it, sareen?”

Ryee shook her head.

“Because it would be wrong, Ryee. Just like hitting another child or pushing them is also wrong. You see, there are good ways and bad ways to do things. For example, a good way you could have acted was to come and talk to me immediately instead of trying to hide that other children were mean at school. And a good way that I can act is to go to school tomorrow and talk with your teachers and the principal. Now, hurting other people is always bad, especially if you have other choices.”

“But... what it they’re mean to you and hurt you? Is fighting back bad?”

“Don’t mistake fighting back with hurting people, sareen. You can always fight back to defend yourself. But your goal should always be to defend yourself, not to hurt the other person. If your goal is to hurt others, how are you any better than the people who hurt you? You always need to be better than them.”

“I’m sorry, Ma,” Ryee said.

Ma kissed her forehead. “I want you to promise something, Ryee,” she said.

“Ma?”

“Don’t ever hide things like this from me again. I know you don’t like it when I’m sad, but I’m your mother. It’s my job to be sad when my daughter isn’t happy. And there are a bunch of adults in your life who love you and to whom you can talk if anything like this happens again.”  
“Okay, Ma.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to anyone who’s reading!


	6. Pivot

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vetta has questions. She won’t give up until they have been answered to her satisfaction.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Slightly shorter chapter again. Sorry about that.

Vetta waited until Ryee was asleep to slip out of their dwelling and head to Anakin’s. The mechanic opened when she knocked.

“Vetta,” he said. “What are you doing here?”

“I must talk to you,” Vetta said as Anakin let her in. “About Ryee.”

“Has something else happened?”

“No,” Vetta said, shaking her head. “But I want to talk about what happened today. I tried calling Ryee’s school for more details, but no-one seemed to know about today’s incident. I was told Ryee had been sent home sick, which was clearly not the case based on what you and Ryee said. So what really happened, and where do *you* come into this?” 

“Do you recall what I told you about the Force?” Anakin asked in return.

Vetta crossed her arms. “It’s the power that my daughter supposedly has.”

“Has,” Anakin corrected, raising a hand, palm facing up. 

Around them, various bits and pieces rose from their resting places on counters and tabletops and hovered in the air like their own small galaxy. Vetta’s eyes widened, and she took a step back, suddenly reminded of how her former Master had been pinned to the wall by nothing but air the night Anakin had come to free them.

“You’re trying to tell me that Ryee used her... this power,” Vetta said. “And that’s how she hurt Kit.”

“Yes,” Anakin said, lowering his hand. Everything set back down as if they had never floated in the air.

“And *where* do you come into this?”

“I sensed a disturbance in the Force. So I went to investigate, and found Ryee using the Force in anger.”

Vetta looked at him blankly. Anakin made a garbled sound.

“Suppose you are at the market,” Anakin said, sounding annoyed. “You can hear all of the noise going on around you. At any given time, you can focus in on a conversation. That din is the Force. Now suppose a fight breaks out. You will hear it, and it will also change the behaviour or the crowd around you. That is a disturbance. The only difference between my analogy and what happened today is that I sensed that something important *would* happen and went to investigate. That put me in the right place at the right time to prevent your daughter from accidentally doing something she would regret.”

“Something she would regret?” Vetta said in horror. “Like what?”

“Inadvertently killing that idiot boy,” Anakin said bluntly.

His words were like a cold shower. “These powers of hers are dangerous.”

“They should not be in someone untrained. But Ryee seems to have an... intuitive grasp of the Force.”

“Then train her,” Vetta asked. “Teach her to control her powers, to suppress them if you have to.”

“No,” Anakin said sharply. “You cannot ask me to train her.”

“You’re the only one I know of who can!”

“And I will not do it.”

“Then what do I do? You just told me that she’s a danger to herself and to others untrained!”

“You must take Ryee out of that school. It is harming her.”

“I wish I could, but I can’t!” Vetta practically yelled, tugging her right lek. “Ryee needs her education. We don’t have money for datapads, and I can’t keep her at home because I have work even if we did. And taking her out of school isn’t going to help with those kriffing powers of hers she can’t even control... Please, Anakin. I know you say you’re dangerous—but you just said that Ryee could have accidentally killed another child. At the age of nine! Surely it’s more dangerous to leave her untrained.”

The mechanic crossed his arms and was silent for a long moment. “If Ryee’s main issues occur at lunchtime, she may come to my workshop during that time. But I will not teach her to use the Force, beyond basic control and warning her of the dangers of misusing it. And if you notice any odd behaviours from her that you do not like, you ban her from coming immediately. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” Vetta said in relief. “Thank you. I don’t know how I can possibly replay you—“

Anakin raised a hand. “You can repay me by heeding my warning and banning Ryee from coming if you feel something is wrong. I will keep you appraised of what we do, and Ryee should do the same.”

Vetta could do that. “Thank you. I’ll tell Ryee in the morning.”

Anakin inclined his head. “While you are here, inform your lover that his merchandise is ready.”

Vetta nodded and turned back into the night.


	7. First official lunch

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The first lunch has arrived!

She was almost scared to go to school the next day, but the idea of being able to escape at lunch made her happy beyond reason, and no-one seemed to remember the drama of the previous day. When the bell rang quickly slip out and ran to the workshop, initially getting lost before she felt the glow and followed it to Anakin.

The cloaked mechanic was nowhere to be found when she arrived, although she could feel the glow nearby and hear the regular rasp of his breathing. Confused, she looked around, until she spotted two black-clad legs sticking out from under an elevated pod-like contraption in the far end of the room.

“Could you pass me the coil of blue wire that’s on the table next to you?” Anakin’s voice said suddenly. 

Ryee started and looked around, spotting the requested wire. She carefully picked it up and made her way to the mysterious pod. Anakin was lying on his back beneath it, tinkering with wires inside an open control panel. 

“Thank you,” he said, taking the wire.

“What is this?” Ryee asked.

“This—“ Anakin cut the blue wire and carefully positioned the length inside the pod someplace Ryee couldn’t see, “—is a chamber which will allow me to remove my helmet from time to time. *If* I can get it to work properly.”

“Your... helmet?” Ryee asked.

Anakin went still for a very short moment. Then: 

“It is a medical device I wear under my head-wrap. I require it to breathe.”

“Why the headwrap, then?”

“The helmet is black.”

“Oh.” Ryee shuddered, picturing wearing black in the scorching sun. “And... you can’t take it off?”

“No.”

“Ever?”

“Not unless I can get the hyperbaric chamber to work.” Anakin sounded irritated. “Otherwise, I suffocate within minutes.”

Ryee tried to imagine what it must be like to always have her own head encased in a helmet. The thought made her shudder. “I’d hate that.”

Anakin pushed himself out from under the pod, sitting up and gazing at her with the blank reflective lenses of his goggles—no, helmet, Ryee realized. She couldn’t feel his emotions, and it felt odd because she always felt others’ emotions. 

Finally, he stood. “Have you eaten yet?”

Ryee was startled by the abrupt change of subject. Still, she shook her head. “My lunch is in my bag.”

“You can use the table in the far right corner and get started. I just need to do a few things and I’ll join you.”

Ryee sat down and began eating her bantha dried meat sandwich (which, fortunately, only had a minimal amount of sand in it). True to his word, Anakin joined her at the table with a small control chip and a soldering kit, which he busied himself with, his large hands surprisingly precise in the task.

Ryee then thought of the appliances back home, and how Ma was always complaining, saying they were not working.

“Anakin?” she asked, shyly.

“...yes?”

“Do you think maybe you could teach me to fix basic things? Like a vaporator?”

The mechanic paused, and, mortified, she wondered if she had asked too much. “I mean—you don’t have to, you’re already nice enough to let me come here...”

“It would be my pleasure to teach you, young one.”

As such, their lunch sessions became mechanic lessons, which both Ryee and Anakin enjoyed tremendously, although occasionally, when Anakin wasn’t being as guarded with his emotions as usual, Ryee could tell that he felt regret and melancholy, although it seemed to be targeted to something other than their activity. He never spoke about it or his past, and as such Ryee quickly learned to let the issue slide. He also didn’t mention the Force as much as she would have liked, but she took things as they came. She was just glad to be away from the bullies at school for the three-hours that were the lunchtimes, which occurred when the day was hottest. The fact she wasn’t there at lunch time to torment seemed to make them doubly-anxious to follow her to work, which invariably made her late in her attempts to shake them off before arriving at Anakin’s.

One day, when she was particularly late, she found him sitting in the middle of his hangar, with nearly all the contents of the hangar hovering at various levels. Ryee stood at the door and stared around, mouth open in wonder.

She saw Anakin’s head pivot towards her. “Come in.”

Ryee closed her mouth and walked towards him, eyes captivated by the objects which were slowly lowering themselves back to a semblance of order. 

“Do you remember what I said about the Force after you had pushed your bullies away from you?”

“I—“ Ryee racked her brain. “It’s... why I know people’s emotions? And it’s something that... uh... binds something?”

“Close enough. The Force is the energy that connects everything in the Galaxy together. Force-sensitives like you and I possess the ability to feel this energy, and use it for a variety of things: sensing emotions, or thoughts, moving objects, enhancing one’s reflexes, speed and strength, healing, seeing the future, and many more things. Sit.”

A chair moved to wards Ryee, and she sat in it. 

“Close your eyes.”

Ryee obeyed again, and the world became the dark red of light through eyelids. 

“You told me before that you already sense people in the Force. Focus on that feeling.”

Ryee tried to do it, but got distracted by the glow that was Anakin.

“Do not simply focus on me. Breathe deeply. Look further around us. What do you see?”

Ryee took a deep breath and tried. She did, really. But nothing happened.

“It isn’t easy at first. You must empty your mind of all thoughts and let it come to you. Focus on your breathing.”

Ryee closed her eyes and tried again. Nothing happened, apart from an itch which developed in her right foot. “It doesn’t work!”

She could distinctly feel Anakin’s amusement now. 

”You need to try longer than thirty seconds, child. In time, touching the Force will become as a second nature to you as breathing.”

“How about you try to feel anything while sitting right next to a supernova?” Ryee grumbled, scratching her foot and trying to find another comfortable sitting position.

Anakin made a rumbling sound that was almost like a chuckle, and she sensed him dim in the Force, as if he was trowing a cover around himself.

“How about now?”

Ryee tried, but and felt something, at the edge of her consciousness—

“Ugh,” she said, opening her eyes. “I can’t catch it.”

“Perhaps of you focus less on not being able to touch the Force and focus more on touching it, it would come to you easier,” Anakin pointed out.

Ryee looked at him sullenly. “What does that even mean?”

“It means you must stop fixating on whether or not you are able to do something and simply let yourself do it. Put this over your eyes.”

A piece of cloth floated towards them. She eyed it suspiciously.

“Why?”

Anakin gestured sharply. “Do as I say.”

Ryee suddenly felt bad. “Sorry, you’re right,” she said, tying the cloth over her eyes.

“Now, I want you to catch the objects I will be throwing at you,” Anakin’s voice said.

“What? Blindfolded?”

“No, while you are performing a Mon Calamari water ballet while standing on your head.”

“Oh-kay,” Ryee said, wondering at how in the world the vocoder could fail at expressing the most normal of emotions but somehow perfectly convey sarcasm.

The first item was round and hard and bounced painfully off her arm. “Ow!”

“I said to catch it. I do not have any soft objects lying around and I do not want you to unnecessarily injure yourself.”

Another bolt bounced off her shoulder. This time, Ryee felt as if she had almost felt it coming. “Wait, was that—“

She raised her arm in defense, and yelped as a bolt bounce off her forearm. 

“Good,” Anakin said.

“Did I just—“ Ryee yelped again and moved her other arm. What felt like a small cylinder of plastoid clunked against her hand and she batted it away. Then she moved her hand to intercept another bolt.

“Yes,” the mechanic’s voice sounded satisfied. “Catch the next one.”

Ryee yelled again and frantically batted the air in front of her as various softly-thrown projectiles came her way. She could feel them bounce off.

“Focus. Feel the Force guiding your movements. Become aware of it. See the objects.”

Ryee thought she—almost—

The feeling left as something bounced painfully off her tibia. “Ow,” she complained, lifting her blindfold and rubbing her leg, scowling at the knut on the floor.

“Your progress is satisfactory,” Anakin said. “We will continue this exercise tomorrow.”


	8. Training, day 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ryee leads her (mind-wiped) bullies in a small chase through town. Anakin is unimpressed. Kit and his cronies get what they deserve. Overall, it’s a good day.

The next day, the fact Kit and his gang were deprived of their favourite punching-bag emboldened the to chase her through the streets. Ryee didn’t even bother trying to shake them, and dashed into the entrance of the scrapyard, Kit and his four friends hot on her heels but never too hot. She felt Anakin look at her, startled, as she jumped over the broken-down podracer he was fixing and went to hide behind the doors to the hangar.

“You spend your lunches in a dump!” Kit yelled after her. His friends snickered.

“I object to you calling my scrapyard a ‘dump’,” Anakin’s voice said, sounding distinctly annoyed. Ryee smiled as she heard small shrieks, and a scuffle of feet.  
She peeked over the speeder and saw her bullies trying to get to their feet, having apparently tripped in their haste to get back.

“Who—who are you?” Kit’s voice was high in fear as he craned his neck to look at Anakin, who was wielding a welding torch in one hand and a hydrospanner in the other.

“A mechanic, and the owner of this place. It is my apprentice you were tormenting.”  
“S-s-sorry!” Ryee grin’s widened as Kit’s voice turned to a squeak. She peeked again and saw the human boy scooting back on the sand, white-faced, with Anakin looking down on him.  
“Do not apologize to me, boy. I recognize all of you you; you are the children of the ex-Imperial officers who runs the law enforcement department for the city,” Anakin’s voice took on a distinctly malicious tone that sent little shivers down Ryee’s spine. She was very happy he wasn’t speaking to her. “Perhaps I should pay your parents a *visit* and tell them just what their precious little younglings have been up to during lunchtimes? I am certain they will be *very* interested in how you are sullying their good Imperial names.”  
Kit and his friends stepped back, suddenly looking scared. “Uh, no sir. Please don’t sir.”  
“Then you will apologize to Ryee,” Anakin said, tone suddenly hard. “And you will leave her alone from now on. Ryee, come here.”  
Ryee wiped the smile off her face and stepped forwards, looking at Kit curiously.   
“Now apologize,” Anakin said to Kit and his friends.  
Kit looked at Ryee and mumbled something, turning beet red.  
“Would you prefer me speaking to your father, boy?”  
“‘M Sorry!” Kit said.   
The other fourth-grades followed his lead.  
“Ryee?”  
“You were mean to me,” Ryee said. “Your teasing wasn’t funny. It hurt and you knew it. I forgive you, but you’re gonna leave me alone because I’m not scared of you anymore!”  
“Good,” Anakin growled, turning back to the others. “Now, *leave.*”  
Ryee’s bullies all but tripped over each other trying to scram as fast as they could. It was very satisfying.

“Come along now,” Anakin said, turning towards his workshop. “I believe you have some practicing to do.”

Turns out “practice” was some more meditation.

“My bum hurts,” Ryee complained, shifting on the hard tile of the floor.

“Perhaps you should stop focusing on how uncomfortable you are and begin focusing on emptying your mind,” came Anakin’s voice off to her left.

“I don’t get why we couldn’t play the bolt-catching game like yesterday.”

“I told you I need to work on something. We’ll do it later. Focus on *emptying* your *mind*, young one.”

Ryee tried to do as told. She found she could sync her breathing to Anakin’s respirator, and tried to focus on the air washing in and out of her. She imagined it as colours—pink into her lungs, shift to purple, blue exhaled. Green inhaled, yellow exhaled...

A sudden burst of *frustrationangerirritation* made her start back into reality. Ryee opened her eyes just in time to see Anakin propel whatever he had been so adamant to work on against the far wall with a Force-assisted overhand throw, a garbled yell bursting out of his mask. The device hit the wall with a burst of sparks and, still sparking, fell to the floor with a clink that was audible in the sudden silence.

Ryee stared at it, then looked at Anakin, who was standing, staring at nothing in particular, his black-clad hands fists at his sides. She could field the Force around them positively vibrating with rage and... sorrow. It washed up against Ryee, and she instinctively folded back in herself to get away from the feelings.

“Are you okay?” she said, getting to her feet. 

Anakin didn’t answer for the longest of moments. He only clenched and unclenched his fists at his sides. Not okay, Ryee concluded. Not that it wasn’t obvious.

She walked over to the wall and picked up the crackling device Anakin had thrown at it. It looked like a simple long-range holocommunicator. She turned it over in her hands, careful not to touch the metal parts in case any electricity remained.

“There is nothing to be done. I cannot fix it, or any device like it,” Anakin said, and although his voice was flat frustration bit the air around them.

“But you can fix anything,” Ryee protested, confused.

“Apparently that is no longer the case. I am sorry for disturbing your meditation.”

Anakin reached out his hand. Ryee sensed a tug on the device, which she let go of. Anakin caught it with the Force and set it on the table. 

“Now, put on the blindfold. We will practice with the bolts again.”

Ryee felt a wide grin come back on her face. “Yay! Bolt-catching game!”

Anakin paused, head tilted in her direction quizzically.

“What? It’s fun!” Ryee said.

Anakin just shook his head. “Prepare yourself, young one.”

Ryee managed to deflect many more bolts than the previous day, although she still didn’t manage to catch any. *One day*, she thought.

As they wrapped up their training session after Anakin declared himself satisfied for the day, Ryee found herself glancing at the broken comm unit on the table. When Anakin left to attend to the customer announced by the small motion-detection alarm, she quickly slipped it off the table and into her lunch bag.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please let me know if you spot any typos at the end. Wrote it straight inthe browser because I wasn’t happy with the way the chapter originally finished.
> 
> Thanks for reading, and as always I’ll see you next week!

**Author's Note:**

> Welp. I wrote this back in 2017, never thought I’d actually post it. But here we are.
> 
> First longfic, coming up?!


End file.
